This Is The Happiest I've Ever Been
by deepdiveintoyoureyes
Summary: Or, All The Ways Will Tried to Show Alicia he Loved Her... THE FULL STORY of Will and Alicia's trip to New York City to deal with Matthew Ashbaugh – behind the epic flashbacks of 5x10 'The Decision Tree.' Will and Alicia are finally together, alone, away
1. Chapter 1

"This is crazy romantic," Will said as he took in the twinkling Manhattan skyline and held her bare body against his own. Alicia leaned her cheek against his, their faces damp from the exertion and the warmth of the September air.

She smiled, and moved her mouth to his ear.

"This is the happiest I've ever been," she said, voice dropped to a whisper, and he closed his eyes to try and hold on the words; to try and grip onto them like a fistful of water. He willed the world to stop spinning, just for an second, so that he could have the moment for a little while longer. _The happiest she's ever been_ … he thought, and his heart raced in his chest.

"Alicia," he said, earnest and solemn. "I…"

"Don't," she said, silencing him with a kiss and a furrow of her brow.

She wouldn't let him say it. He had tried earlier, too. This was their third and final night in New York, and he had tried each and every day.

On the first night, they had walked the streets after dinner, _holding hands_ , something they had never been able to do – would never be able to do – in Chicago. But they walked, carefree and spirited, with the sticky heat of the day burned off now into an evening so blissfully perfect that he grinned and grinned and grinned.

They walked like young lovers through the streets, glancing in store windows, and in his mind, he imagined that this was his life, that this was their life.

He watched her, and he watched people look at her – not with recognition, like in Chicago – but with admiration; he had seen how her poise and grace and beauty turned heads since she was a twenty three year old student, dynamic as all hell, with curly dark hair so alluring it was dangerous.

At the opulent window displays they stopped and pointed and commented, and he thought about how it would feel to be able to spoil her with the beautiful and special things that made her eyes widen. He wanted her to have everything, wanted to lay things at her feet like divine offerings.

At Tiffany's, she peered at the earrings, as he stood behind her, kissing her neck. Beside them, the engagement rings sparkled and he watched her push at her wedding band with her thumb, the way she did unconsciously whenever anyone talked about marriage, or divorce. He half wanted to tell her to take it off, just for their weekend together, but the other half of him was glad that she wore it and imagined that he was the one that had slid it onto her hand. She rubbed at the ring and started walking.

Behind Cartier's shining glass she liked a watch.

"Look at that," she cooed, and he wanted her to have it. "Isn't that the most elegant thing? God, look at it!" She pointed, and he looked. It was stunning, and on its face little diamonds caught the light as fiercely as had the rings at Tiffany's.

"Oh my god, are those zeros?!" she asked, her voice lilting with a laugh that made him want to pin her against the glass and kiss her. "Thirty seven _thousand?_ " she continued. "Maybe that's what I'll buy myself when… _if_ … I ever make partner," she said, with a smile coy and mischievous and a raised eyebrow.

"Not a bad idea," he said.

"You bought a sports car, right?" she asked.

"I did."

"Well then I'd be being frugal, by comparison."

She tugged him along and they peered in at purses and gowns and jewels and he thought about the hours he worked, and how his bonus last year had finally hit seven figures, and how he had paid off his apartment and how it was all so pointless.

Back at the hotel, they fucked, hungrily, against the wall and in the shower, before tumbling into bed, and kissing and holding one another until they couldn't keep their eyes open. He had wanted to say it then, in the dark, but he had choked on the tiny words.

The next day, Ashbaugh wore them out with his volatile moods and unpredictable decisions. Will didn't know how Alicia had the patience. Will hated him. He saw how Ashbaugh looked at her, and it made his stomach hurt.

That night, their second, they ordered room service and ate in robes, while Will just stared at her.

"Hey, I got something for you," he said, when they were done.

"You… what?"

He refilled their flutes with prosecco, and went to get the box. He handed it to her, red and heavy in her hands. It was embossed with gold, and she didn't need the word _Cartier_ to know.

"Will, I…"

"Open it." He felt nervous, inexplicably.

She swallowed and clicked open the box. In the plush white lining was a watch, _the_ watch, and it caught the light and glinted and she shook her head and opened her mouth.

"I… I… I can't. I can't take this Will, it… I can't."

"Well that's a shame, because they don't do returns on their vintage collection."

They both knew that wasn't true, but he tried to paste humor over the sting of rejection that he felt.

She shook her head.

"You don't like it?" he changed tactic. "Because they'd probably do an exchange…"

"I love it, Will, I, it's gorgeous, I just, I can't, it's…"

"It's what? You saw something you liked, I got it for you, that's all. It's a gift." He tried to reassure her, tried to make it light and meaningless and tried not to feel embarrassed.

"It's too much."

He changed angle again, strategy spinning in his head like he was standing in court. "Let me do this for you. Let me treat you, baby. Please."

She smiled, unsure, but he could see instantly that he'd found the chink in her armor, that this play would work. "Put it on. Let me see what it looks like on you," he encouraged, softly.

She swallowed again. Then she took off her old watch, and tentatively took it out of the box. She held it in her hand, uncertain, and so he took it from her and slid it onto her wrist. He fastened it, nodded, and kissed the back of her hand.

"It's beautiful. You're beautiful," he said, her hand still in his.

"Thank you, Will, it's, it's stunning, I love it, really, thank you. Thank you."

"Good," he said, leaning to kiss her cheek. "Get rid of that," he nodded at her old watch. "It's cursed. Do you think this one might finally bring us some good timing?" he smiled.

"I hope so," she said. "I hope so."

He felt the words forming again, but she spoke, instead. "Thank you, Will, so much, it's… it's _perfect_ and I'll treasure it," and then she kissed him, and his words would have to wait.

* * *

Now, on their third and last night, he had to tell her.

He watched the clock as the afternoon rolled into evening, and Ashbaugh was holding things up. Will seethed.

"They're out to get me," Ashbaugh ranted.

 _What in the hell,_ Will thought, but he tried to reason with him. "Trust me Matthew, please…"

"Stop saying my name like that, I'm not twelve years old," he spat back.

 _Well stop acting like a fucking 12 year old,_ he thought.

Will fidgeted, eager to get out and have his last night in the city with Alicia. But Ashbaugh had more questions, more issues, as if he didn't want to let them - let her - leave.

"Play the fox," Ashbaugh was saying, and _god knows what the man is talking about_ , Will thought, as he swallowed his disgust and leaned closer to the table. Hidden from view, he ran his fingers under the hem of Alicia's skirt. He touched her soft, milky thighs and made her shift in her seat. His pulse quickened.

Ashbaugh could gaze and fawn and flirt, but it was _his_ hands that were on her, Will thought. _He_ could touch her, _he_ could turn her on.

And Will had had enough. At 9, long after they'd ordered in shitty Thai food and Will had bitterly canceled the dinner reservations that he'd made three weeks earlier, he excused them both.

In the taxi, he was angry, and he thought about how he would slam the hotel door shut behind them and fuck her, fast, against it. But his temper cooled as they drove down Park, her hand in his, the watch striking against her pale skin, and by the time they got out of the elevator, he had better ideas. It was warm, and they hadn't used the balcony yet…

He sat back in the chair as she sunk down onto him. As she rocked her hips over him while he cradled her in a blanket, the words were there. They were in his throat and then on his tongue.

"I thought we would never leave," she said, grinding against him and kissing his mouth. He moaned in agreement and appreciation, and because he had missed his moment, again.

"This depo though, he's got it all wrong," she said. Then, smiling, "Don't worry, I can make him change his mind…"

Will pasted a grin on his face and tried to focus on the feeling of her moving up and down him. "How?"

"He cares about me," she breathed.

"You've got him wrapped around your finger, is that it?"

"I have my ways," she joked, and it felt like a knife to the gut.

But Alicia could not have been more oblivious. Alicia, on top of this building, felt like she was on top of the whole world, completely at ease in his arms. She was away from the surveillance, away from the memories, away from the guilt, the responsibility, the hurt and the shame.

She was alone, with Will, in a city with no baggage, and everything was… perfect. She was enthralled and at peace and she felt young and absolutely free. She wished they could stay for a month.

Will didn't want to think or talk about anything other than Alicia, and so he slipped a hand between them and smiled up at her when her thighs tensed in response. He watched her respond to him, captivated by her whimpers and by the feel of her wrapped around him, and nobody had ever turned him on like she had, and when her breath caught and he knew that she was about to fall apart, he rocked up into her and he came too, staring at her as she cried out and panted through her climax.

Neither moved. Neither could bear the thought of leaving. She readjusted herself on his lap, getting settled and comfortable, and they sat still, silent and calm, for a long while, with little sighs and kisses coming every now and then.

They almost fell asleep, but Will broke the silence. "This is crazy romantic."

And then she said her words, but she wouldn't let him say his.

She would tell him that she had never been happier, _in her life,_ not in the thrill of getting engaged, not as an optimistic newlywed… _The happiest she's_ _ever_ _been._ How could she tell him this, but not let him tell her how he felt?

 _"_ Alicia… I…"

"Don't."

"Why not?" he broke the kiss and looked searchingly up into her face.

"Because I… because this is hard for me," she sighed.

 _This is hard for you?_ he thought. He knew it was hard for _him,_ he knew how agonizing it was to know that he would never, _ever_ , be the most important person in her life, but that for him, she kind of already was.

"Look, I don't want anything from you," he said. " _I_ just want to say it. I just want you to know."

She bit the inside of her mouth.

"I could get hit by a bus tomorrow, Alicia…" She frowned and grabbed tightly onto his hair, as if holding him back from that fate. "I'm just saying, anything could happen. And if it did – if I got hit by a bus - I would want to have said it. I would want you to know."

She sighed and her eyes burned as she fought the prickle of tears. She wanted to let him. But it would be too much. It was already too much.

He looked at her wet eyes and then looked down. "Alicia, I, alright… I won't say it. But you know that I do." He looked back up at her expectantly, though unsure exactly of what.

"Right?" he asked, after a moment.

"I do… I do know," she said quietly. She paused, "And I… I do, too," she said, and her eyes filled and he knew he would cry too if he didn't do something and so he kissed her.

He kissed her and then he stood, lifting her, and carried her to the bed. He laid her down, and moved over her, slipping himself into her like she was as fragile as fiberglass. The past two nights had been hard, fast, and needy, mostly, and they had been all over– and outside- the suite, but now, in this bed like at an altar, he put his body inside her body and he made love to her.

He made aching, gentle love to her; love so slow that she could feel each ridge and curve of his length. Her moans were low and long as he moved inside her, luxuriating, unhurried.

His hands held hers tight, and under the full weight of him she couldn't move an inch, but it was hot as hell and as intimate as she could take.

She was _his,_ he felt, and some kind of primal possessiveness that he had never before known coursed through his veins. It wasn't jealousy. He had felt that enough times to know it well – god knows, he had been jealous of Peter, even through his disgrace, even when he was in prison. He'd also felt jealous of Ashbaugh - "Are you married or aren't you?" he had dared ask - and Will had wanted to smash his fist onto the table, wanted to list all the ways that _he,_ nobody else, not Matthew and not Peter, had made her come yesterday, wanted to tell him how good she tasted as she pulled his face closer into her core. But it wasn't jealousy now, it was ownership. He wanted her to be _his_ , always and unconditionally _his_.

As he moved between her open thighs, their breath fell into step. He pressed his mouth all the way over hers and stroked her tongue with his, as slow and as indulgent as were his thrusts. They rocked together, each feeling the other so deep, so raw, so visceral, that together they got close, and together they moved faster, and together they shattered and moaned and shook with splintering, desperate, ecstasy.

In the end it was their bodies that said what their mouths couldn't manage, and they lay there, tangled and breathless and hopelessly, terrifyingly, in love.

"Me too," Will murmured as she curled back into his big spoon.

"What?"

"You make me the happiest I've ever been," he said.

She smiled, and pushed her thumb against her wedding band, but then she moved her hand to adjust the watch on her wrist. It shone under the lamplight.

She wriggled back even more closely against him, pulling his arms even more tightly around her. "I think I like this good timing," she smiled.

"Me too, Leesh." He kissed her head and breathed her in. "Me too, baby."


	2. Chapter 2: Scared to lose you

They lay together, tangled and damp, and staring up at the ceiling. Although they were utterly spent, their minds raced, running different paths around the same thought – leaving New York and going back to Chicago.

Alicia's breaths grew deep and measured, Will noticed, as if she was trying to calm herself.

He turned gently to her and tried to brush back her bangs from above her right eye, but she winced back from him and he froze in shock.

"You… are you… okay?" his words were long and slow.

"I'm sorry, yes," she said, and she reached for the hand he had extended to her. She held it close to her chest. Then she turned her face away. "I…"

Shame and vulnerability stole the words from her mouth.

"What baby?" he said, to the back of her head, as soft as he could muster. It took all his strength to hold back a hard and angry, _"Why the fuck would you recoil from me?"_

"I'm scared… I'm going to lose you," she whispered, and her words tumbled out into the dark.

Will anger melted and his chest ached. "My god, baby, you're not… going to lose me, I'm here," he said, desperate to soothe and to reassure.

But he realized, bitterly, that there were eight million ways that she could lose him – all totally out of his control. He had thought from the start that she would find a way out of this, and he had been afraid of that, and of his own powerlessness from the moment they'd walked into the Presidential Suite a few months earlier.

He pulled her back into his body, spooning her and cocooning her into his limbs. He knew that she liked that, that she felt safe when his body contained hers. He felt her heart thudding through her back.

Her silence crashed around him. He knew she was thinking exactly what he had been thinking – that she could lose him even while he was there for her, ready and desperate to love her, to be with her. His jaw clenched.

He thought about Georgetown, and he thought about now, and how much she had hurt him without ever knowing, or meaning to.

"I don't want to go back," she said, a crack in her voice.

"I know, Leesh, this has been… perfect," he said, and breathed in her hair.

But she wasn't pacified. "It's so… _hard_ there…" she stammered, and he heard the tears before he felt them roll from her cheek to his arm, and it killed him for her to be sad but his anger bubbled back up too. _It doesn't have to be hard_ , he thought. _It's_ your _cowardice, it's_ your _goddamn pride and stubbornness…_ I'm _here for you, I'll be here for you, if you would just leave him and let us make this our life_.

Aloud, he said simply, "I know," and squeezed her tighter.

She wiped at her face and her pain stabbed through him and he hated it and he hated Peter for standing in their way and all he could do was mutter, "Hey, hey, baby, it's going to be ok."

She sniffed.

"I _promise_ ," he said, and he knew that somehow, someday, this woman would destroy him.

Already he had completely lost himself in her. Already, his days were determined by what attention and affection she showed him. Already, he woke up each morning burning for her and reaching blindly out in the dark hoping that she was there. Usually she wasn't, but the chest-crushing joy when she was could tide him through days – sometimes weeks – of not getting to wake up next to the warm shape of her.

Suddenly she turned to face him, cheeks still moist, and she kissed him with an urgency that surprised him. _He_ was usually the one to channel his emotional needs into physical ones, not her, and yet here she was, giving him her body instead of her heart, and using sex in place of conversation, instead of laying down the plans that he so badly wanted.

But, ever powerless before her, he kissed her back, and he wasn't sure that she had stopped crying when her hands moved over his chest and lower and _god_ she just had to touch him and he was ready, a third time, as if he was once again 22 years old; the 22 year old that had just met this Alicia Cavanaugh that everyone was talking about – the girl that had corrected Professor Halsberg in a class of 200, and been right. He had wanted her then, and he wanted her now, and he had probably wanted her all through the two intervening decades, and a lifetime with her wouldn't make up for the lost time, and he couldn't even have that because already she was looking for a way out and….

Lust, and need, and anger, and adoration crashed through his veins as he grabbed her and flipped her onto her back.

As he slipped into her, a growl fell from his throat. She felt like a warm bath and the hairs on his neck stood up feeling her heat and wetness envelop the most tender parts of him.

He grabbed onto her shoulders to pull himself more deeply inside her, and his hips bucked deep into her with a need that terrified him, a need that veered frighteningly close to entitlement. His body held hers down beneath him, and he liked the knowledge that at least for now, she couldn't run.

His hips sped up and he was scared he might hurt her – he felt out of control as he faded in and out of awareness, blinded by desire and urgency.

Her nails sunk into his back as she grabbed him into her in encouragement but he felt her fingers like feathers, and heard only the light echoes of her throaty groans.

" _Fuck Alicia,"_ he choked, and she loved how he forced her name out through gritted teeth, she loved how his body tightened and tensed, she loved the weight of him and the depth and the speed that made her fight for her breath, and-

"Oh god I'm close," she whimpered as he pumped into her.

"No," he breathed, and he suddenly stilled inside her and she clenched around him in protest while her face scrunched into confusion.

He took his hands out from under her shoulders and held her hands with his, lacing their fingers together.

He stared into her eyes – his face inches from hers and his body still. His hardness pulsed inside her and she stared back into his face.

She felt trapped and he knew it. She knew what he was doing; they both knew he was challenging her with the intimacy of the moment, just like he'd challenged her with his words earlier. She looked searchingly up into his face, overwhelmed by the closeness and the strength of her feelings for him, feelings that she didn't know what to do with, or how to act on. Feelings that she had no choice but to recognize, though, and she nodded at him, a silent, _I get it, we are right together,_ and he felt for just a second that maybe, just maybe, this would all be ok.

He moved his mouth down to hers and she responded hungrily. As he moved once more inside her she moaned into his mouth, grinding her hips against his as they moved together. She pulled her hands free from his and wrapped her arms around his back, holding him as tight as she could, and she never wanted him to stop, and he groaned, gratified, as she sighed, "Oh god, oh god." He felt her start to tighten around him as his strokes pushed her closer to the edge, and she cried out, "I need you Will, god, _fuck_ , I need you," as she came, and her body and her words pulled him over the edge with her, blind and panting.

"I need you too," he moaned, as they came down together. "You're everything," he said, and she smiled. It was not her usual smile, laced with lamentation. It was a smile that said that she heard him, and that she wasn't scared, and that she wanted all of it.

As they settled back into their habitual position, the back of her body curled into the front of his, he felt her form palpably relaxed next to him.

"I've had an amazing weekend," he sighed, not scared of overwhelming her with words, not holding back.

"Me too, babe" she said, and his eyes widened. She'd never called him anything like that before. He grinned behind her.

"It _is_ hard back home. But you're worth it," he said, amazed at how good and free it felt to speak without the fear of her unsure, deafening silences. " _This_ is worth it," he said.

"This is," she concurred.

He took her wrist to look at the watch.

"Oh god," he groaned, "we've gotta be at the airport in five hours, that's gonna be rough."

She shrugged. "Well, this was worth it, too."

He smiled and held her tightly, stamping out the voice inside screaming at him to defend himself, warning that he would get hurt. He felt truly hopeful that their feelings, their… _love,_ would be enough, and that it would all be ok. He believed that it would be, for the first time. And even more so than when he had told her an hour earlier, this really was the happiest he had ever been, and he would give everything that he had to keep it this way.


End file.
